Ever Deepening

Fighting Fear

I would be a fool to assert that I was the first person to apprehend
the power of human potential. I am also not the first person to decide
that he wasn't going to get on the cross to help others grasp that
potential. Given that premise, I am brought to a morbid observation on
human nature: When blessed with superior technology, mankind typically
uses it to wage war.

Plus ça change.

So how do we protect ourselves?

When faced with predation, the social animals adopt two strategies. The
first is evasion and rapid procreation. The second is to punish the
predator with a coordinated defense. Both strategies yield the choice and
timing of battle to the predator. The predator's goal is to isolate the
weak, wound them, destroy them, and then consume their energy.

The prey has two choices, in this dynamic. It can fear its end, and
bind its personality to matter up to the moment of its destruction. In
that case, it binds itself to its fear, and carries it forward. The second
option is to draw upon every biochemical resource to avoid its end, but
serenely to release the continuity of its bond with matter before the
instant of death.

So we see that, if we have the misfortune to be prey, the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself. Of course, that doesn't moderate our
frustration.

What does the predator have to fear? Well, eating too much prey. While
the predator is thought of as occupying the pinnacle of the food chain, it
is typically an idiotic supremacy. Natural predators do not limit their
progeny. As the food supply grows, so does their population, until they
hunt their prey into scarcity, and succumb to starvation.